Well...this sorta hurts the neighborhood

[FINFAN]

I live in a small neighborhood, 78 homes (though we literally back up to a large one) A home just sold for $75,000 less than a comp~and the only negative on it is that it is near the street light of a busy-ish intersection. That is a really big amount to have other homes start to rebound from. Dang it....I mean, 20-40 is an expected spread, but 75? Not a short sale or foreclosure either. The Realtor who handled it lives across the street from the sale too...in the neighborhood. I know~ their home, none of my business, and on the up side it did sell but it still stings.

 

[jedijill]

When I was buying my house, the appraiser used a comp from my next door neighbor that sold 100K under what everything else was selling for. My realtor did some digging and found that the home was never really on the market. The same realtor represented the seller and the buyer...it was on the MLS for about 1 minute at midnight before it went under contract. We were able to get that comp excluded as it wasn't on the level.

Maybe some shenanigans happened with that sale in your neighborhood as well.

Good luck!

Jill in CO

 

[FINFAN]

well anything is possible...took about 3 months to sell tho and was in the MLS. I look up anything near us when I see the sign to get an idea on pricing. They did list maybe 20 less than homes further from the intersection, but then to accept 55 under that...I know there may be issues or whatever, but it just hurts at first glance. Hopefully whoever is brave enough to sell next starts the pricing back upward.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I live in a small neighborhood, 78 homes (though we literally back up to a large one) A home just sold for $75,000 less than a comp~and the only negative on it is that it is near the street light of a busy-ish intersection. That is a really big amount to have other homes start to rebound from. Dang it....I mean, 20-40 is an expected spread, but 75? Not a short sale or foreclosure either. The Realtor who handled it lives across the street from the sale too...in the neighborhood. I know~ their home, none of my business, and on the up side it did sell but it still stings.

Ouch!

 

[mistysue]

Is that a high percentage low?

 

[Anthony1971]

I would not worry that much as there can be a lot of variables and also the market can go up and down... where I am the comps are a lot lower than what the houses sell for in the immediate area one example was Zillow estimated a smaller house across the street from me at 250 and it was purchased for 330 which was less than the asking of 350 ... simple reason is a comp may go out a mile in diameter but in the diameter you can have small pockets where the house value is higher and sometimes considerably higher..... things to take into account are as you said near an intersection, school district, close to businesses and overall how a few blocks may be kept compared to others near by. Until you put your house up for sale and people make offers you truly do not know what you will get--idea yes but that can be off. Lastly like the stock market if you watch house values a lot you may have a lot of un needed stress.

 

[robinb]

How can a non-realtor get the price for comps? The house just sold 2 houses down from us for about $100K more than our house if assessed at! So ... it goes both ways. Property values go up and so do our taxes.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

It could have been a case of death or divorce where someone decided to sell low just to get out of there house. I wouldn't worry about one comp.

 

[missnic]

Could there be something really wrong with the house that would require a huge investment post purchase? Foundation issues, structural issues, etc?

On the other side of that, though.. I purchased my house near the bottom of the housing bust for about half of what my neighbors paid just a few years earlier. I'm sure they weren't super happy with that.. It was an REO though, but even private sellers were listing for around the same amount.

 

[QueenIsabella]

There may be more going on than you can see--even living nearby. When we were house-hunting a couple years ago, there was one house we looked at--comparable in price to the one we bought. In the pictures it looked fine, but it ended up having a sinkhole in the backyard, and part of the brick wall in the back was missing. Just this big hole, right in the middle of the wall. It was a "heck no!" before we even entered the house. Once we got inside, we found other issues with a remuddled kitchen and weird master bath. But, if you looked on Zillow or MLS, it would have looked perfectly fine.

 

[supersnoop]

We were house-hunting back when "black mold" was the big news story. There were tons of homes listed for 30% under market value because they couldn't be insured or financed, even though the mold had been remediated.

Last year, my house had multiple offers on day 10 with one over asking price. We ended up selling for 12% higher than the tax-appraised value.

And, of course, it makes a huge difference if we're talking about a $200k house or $1.4MM house.

 

[Bree]

There must have been some underlying issues that popped up after the inspection. It's possible that the owners needed out quickly for whatever reason. Where I live it is very possible for a house that backs to a busy street to be priced much much lower than an interior lot (50-100K depending on what street).

 

[FINFAN]

I am hoping it is the intersection and after 3 months, decided to take that particular offer. I know the house behind me was listed at 460 and had an offer in a week, but that fell thru, and the next, and the next, AND the next ! They finally sold almost a year later for 425. That was stressful as they were a divorce and needed the $ to move on with their lives/new places to live. Maybe this homeowner (orig owner too, home is 23 years old) had issues like that too.

 

[4HOLIDAYS]

My next door neighbor died and his home was under contract for cash within a few days from another neighbor who has bought several homes in the last 5/6 yrs in our neighborhood for cash and then rents them and lets them go. It has impacted the values quite a bit. Another resident of our neighborhood is a realtor and keeps me up to date on the sales, the stories, listings... Iwill say that it has made for some very unhappy people when they are trying to sell.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I am hoping it is the intersection and after 3 months, decided to take that particular offer. I know the house behind me was listed at 460 and had an offer in a week, but that fell thru, and the next, and the next, AND the next ! They finally sold almost a year later for 425. That was stressful as they were a divorce and needed the $ to move on with their lives/new places to live. Maybe this homeowner (orig owner too, home is 23 years old) had issues like that too.

I think it's just another sign that you need to move someplace warm and sunny .

 

[FINFAN]

I think it's just another sign that you need to move someplace warm and sunny .

lol...well that's the plan, but when DH gets wind of this recent sale? It will be ammo for him that we can't afford to move, won't get enough for our place to justify upgrades we need to do to sell...yadda yadda You have your DH on board with your plans, oh how I wish! My DH is after a same size (or bigger )place if we ever move, so he wants every last penny we can get. You know, so he can say it isn't HIS fault we never moved..the numbers just didn't work for us. I'm on to that backhanded process lol

 

[halfpintpeggy]

My next door neighbor died and his home was under contract for cash within a few days from another neighbor who has bought several homes in the last 5/6 yrs in our neighborhood for cash and then rents them and lets them go. It has impacted the values quite a bit. Another resident of our neighborhood is a realtor and keeps me up to date on the sales, the stories, listings... Iwill say that it has made for some very unhappy people when they are trying to sell.

Ugh, that's horrible!!! What a way to bring down a neighborhood, geez. Must be heart breaking.

 

[FINFAN]

Ugh, that's horrible!!! What a way to bring down a neighborhood, geez. Must be heart breaking.

well it sure doesn't give a warm fuzzy.

 

[robinb]

My next door neighbor died and his home was under contract for cash within a few days from another neighbor who has bought several homes in the last 5/6 yrs in our neighborhood for cash and then rents them and lets them go. It has impacted the values quite a bit. Another resident of our neighborhood is a realtor and keeps me up to date on the sales, the stories, listings... Iwill say that it has made for some very unhappy people when they are trying to sell.

When my mom died I was inundated with scumbag bottom feeders trying to get me to sell her house to them at a fraction of its worth. Grieving people do stupid things. I remember a thread back in October about a poster whose brother, the executor, wanted to unload the family house at 1/3rd the value just to get rid of it as quickly and easily as possible.

 

[MomToOne]

My house is on a busy street. I have had appraisals done in the past that I just laugh at, because I know they don't discount for the busy street enough. In my case, based on watching house sales for the past 10 years, they need to knock at least 100K off of the comps they pull from the quieter streets nearby, but they only usually knock off 20-30K.

Busy streets and intersections make for a bigger price difference than you'd think!